Chicago's Gitmo

[Vashta Nerada]

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/24/chicago-police-detain-americans-black-site

The Chicago police department operates an off-the-books interrogation compound, rendering Americans unable to be found by family or attorneys while locked inside what lawyers say is the domestic equivalent of a CIA black site.

The facility, a nondescript warehouse on Chicago's west side known as Homan Square, has long been the scene of secretive work by special police units.

Alleged police practices at Homan Square, according to those familiar with the facility who spoke out to the Guardian after its investigation into Chicago police abuse, include:

    Keeping arrestees out of official booking databases.
    Beating by police, resulting in head wounds.
    Shackling for prolonged periods.
    Denying attorneys access to the "secure" facility.
    Holding people without legal counsel for between 12 and 24 hours, including people as young as 15.

At least one man was found unresponsive in a Homan Square "interview room" and later pronounced dead.

Homan Square is "analogous to the CIA's black sites," said Andrea Lyon, a former Chicago public defender and current dean of Valparaiso University Law School. When she practiced law in Chicago in the 1980s and 1990s, she said, "police used the term 'shadow site'" to refer to the quasi-disappearances now in place at Homan Square.

"Back when I first started working on torture cases and started representing criminal defendants in the early 1970s, my clients often told me they'd been taken from one police station to another before ending up at Area 2 where they were tortured," said Taylor, the civil-rights lawyer most associated with pursuing the notoriously abusive Area 2 police commander Jon Burge. "And in that way the police prevent their family and lawyers from seeing them until they could coerce, through torture or other means, confessions from them."

[dbacksfan 2.0]

 http://my.chicagotribune.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-82938490/

[Vashta Nerada]

http://my.chicagotribune.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-82938490/

"No, it wasn't a mischaracterization," said Guardian reporter Spencer Ackerman of his story's headline describing Homan Square as such. "You can find certain black sites in Romania and Poland that are out in the open. It's not the visibility of the facility, it's what goes on in the facility that makes it secretive."

[Vashta Nerada]

Chicago 'Black Site' 'Not First Time' Anti-Terror Tactics Allegedly Used On Americans
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/27/war-on-terror-coming-home_n_6770990.html

"This is not the first time that local policing may have taken a page from the War on Terror, or vice versa" Edwards said, "The use of widespread electronic surveillance, militarized tactical policing and weaponry, sneak and peek searches to rummage through our homes, racial profiling, entrapment schemes using large sums of money to lure participants and where the government is the sole creator of the crime, and the unchecked power of prosecutors to use harsh sentencing laws to coerce cooperation and guilty pleas, are as familiar in the War on Drugs as in the War on Terror."



http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/27/chicago-abusive-confinment-homan-square

"They had me handcuffed – both hands stretched-out," Wright told the Guardian. "I was stretched out like I'm being crucified."
The position left Hutcherson defenseless when an officer he said grew frustrated with interrogating him and punched him two or three times in the face.
"He takes his foot and steps on my groin, like he was putting out a cigarette or something, with his toe," Hutcherson told the Guardian. Before leaving, the officer said, "it's gonna get a little hot up in here,'" Hutcherson remembered. The officer closed the door and soon Hutcherson began sweltering from the heat in the stifling room.

"Over the last 25 years, we have repeatedly brought the justice department and the US attorney powerful evidence of systemic police torture, repeater cops running wild without discipline or supervision, and a myriad of other patterns of outrageous police misconduct"



Held for hours at secret Chicago 'black site': 'You're a hostage. It's kidnapping'
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/26/chicago-police-homan-square-vic-suter


Activists in Chicago gathered Saturday for a protest and march against alleged "black sites" in the city where police supposedly hold suspects and witnesses for long periods without public records and access to lawyers.

In an investigative report, The Guardian charges that the Chicago Police Department operates an off-the-books interrogation compound in Homan Square, rendering Americans unable to be found by family or attorneys while locked inside what lawyers told the paper is the domestic equivalent of a CIA black site. Police deny the claims.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/02/28/activists-protest-alleged-chicago-police-black-sites/24180197/



"People taken there are disappeared from the system," Solowiej told Al Jazeera. "Homan Square is where lawyers look when we can't find someone taken into custody and when the Chicago Police Department says they have no record of the arrest.

"There is one definition of arrest in the United States of America and that is the moment your individual liberty is restricted," Siska said. "The moment they slap cuffs on you, the clock starts running on the suspect's ability to access a phone, lawyer, and when they have to be arraigned. Any police interference with that is unconstitutional."
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/2/25/chicago-police-slammed-for-hidden-interrogations.html

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-protesters-target-homan-square-police-facility-20150228-story.html

[Breadburner]

Chicago is a great place for a facility like this.....

[patric]

Chicago is a great place for a facility like this.....

Ironic that Guantanimo Bay's torture experts were recruiting from Chcago PD's torture experts:
http://www.democracynow.org/2015/2/26/exporting_torture_former_chicago_police_detective

The only thing more insane than something like this could be going on in America
is the lack of outrage that something like this could be going in in America.

[Vashta Nerada]

The problem with the Homan site, as well as many other instances of police abuse, is that there's little or no accountability when nothing goes to court. Whether or not the rights of an arrestee were violated plays out in the legal system, and if nothing goes to court or gets reported, little happens. "There is no punishment available for a violation of an arrestee's constitutional rights unless they (the police) fess up to the fact," said Boyle. "Homan square is the blackest of the black holes."

While the majority of local media have been busy either reprinting non-answers from police officials or shamefully belittling and even outright mocking the victims who've come forward, we shouldn't forget or shrug our shoulders at these stories. The fact that they're "nothing new," should be the kind of thing media and politicians feel both shock and outrage about, rather than shaking our heads and doing nothing. According to the Chicago Reporter, the City paid out $54.2 million last year alone in settlements stemming from police misconduct, which doesn't even include fees paid to its own lawyers. If anything, that alone shows this is the sort of thing that's far from isolated and far from over.

http://chicagoist.com/2015/02/27/stories_continue_to_emerge_from_chi.php

[guido911]

Chicago is a great place for a facility like this.....

Would you please show just a little outrage BB? 

[Breadburner]

I think Chicago is ahead of the game on this....Best thing out of Chicago since the "Chicago Dog".....

[guido911]

Ironic that Guantanimo Bay's torture experts were recruiting from Chcago PD's torture experts:

Ironic? Sounds like someone is hiring folks with experience.

[Breadburner]

I'm going to Chicago in August....I wonder if I can get a tour......

[heironymouspasparagus]

I'm going to Chicago in August....I wonder if I can get a tour......

I got some contacts there....probably could get you the entire "immersion" experience.... let me know.

[Breadburner]

I got some contacts there....probably could get you the entire "immersion" experience.... let me know.

Of course you do.....

[heironymouspasparagus]

Of course you do.....

What dates do you want me to have signed up for you?